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Staff Writer

ANNAPOLIS — Friends and family remembered Ocean City Police officer Tommy Geoghegan Jr. as a consummate prankster who could talk his way in or out of any situation, was always generous with his time and his talents and never said a bad word about anyone.

About 200 people attended his funeral Friday morning at Evangelical Christian Church in Annapolis. Around the sanctuary, there were tears mixed with laughter, and eyes were dabbed as heads nodded with each fondly told “Tommy G” story.

“If you ever need a good story about Tom, just stop me anytime. Have a beer with me. I’m sure I’ll be telling good Tom Geoghegan stories the rest of my life,” said Patrick Snead, a friend since childhood. “He was the best damn friend you could have.”

Geoghegan, 43, died June 30 when the plane he was flying went down in the ocean about 400 yards from shore. His passenger and fellow police officer, 27-year-old Josh Adickes, also died in the crash. The cause of the accident remains under investigation, though a preliminary report detailing witness accounts of the crash were released Friday.

Tommy Geoghegan worked summers as a seasonal Ocean City Police officer since 2002, and “more than anything, Tom loved being a cop,” Snead said.

Snead shared a story from their teenage years about the time, when they were working at the same grocery, that Tommy eyed a kid in the parking lot riding a bike. Tommy was pretty sure it was his brother’s recently stolen 10-speed.

He walked right up to the kid and demanded his brother’s bike. The kid pulled out a pocket knife and waved it about. Tom waited for his chance, then grabbed the kid, and slammed him up against the wall.

“His first arrest,” Snead said, to laughter.

As a seasonal Ocean City officer, his biggest case came in 2010, when he worked deep undercover for two and a half years, posing as a taxi driver to snare drug dealers and users in Ocean City.

Tommy had to alter his whole life as not to blow his cover, including where he lived, and the places he could safely hang out, said Jeff Smith, a fellow Ocean City Police officer and Tommy’s undercover supervisor for what they called Operation Sand Dollar.

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“He owned this case,” he said. “Tommy is what made this thing work. It was all Tommy, all the time.”

Smith said regular undercover officers while on assignment are under constant audio and video surveillance and have a team of officers on standby to help out. Deep cover cops like Tommy, however, don’t have those tools. It meant Tommy was all by himself, using only his brain, his “gift of gab” and, if things hit the fan, a five-shot pistol under his shirt.

“More than anything else, he was courageous,” Smith said.

The single-driver cab company called Tipsy Taxi — “only a name Tommy could come up with,” he said — was shut down when Tommy’s true identity as a police officer was compromised, Smith said.

Still, Tommy’s work brought home one of the largest undercover operations Ocean City police had attempted. It resulted in more than 150 drug deals, the indictment of 35 suspects, thousands of dollars in seized cash and the recovery of stolen firearms.

Even after the many suspects were arrested, they still couldn’t believe the likeable “Tommy Callahan,” his alias during the case, was really an officer, Smith said.

“They loved him,” he said.

Thomas James Geoghegan, Jr. was born Nov. 13, 1969, in Cheverly, Md. He attended Broadneck High School and the University of Maryland Baltimore County. He earned a criminal justice degree from the University of Baltimore.

In 1991, he founded a computer services firm that built and sold personal computers to local businesses. The company, InfoSys Networks, grew during the last 20 years into a successful consulting firm that specialized in building computer networks, his family said.

Skip Carr, one of Tommy’s brothers in the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity at the Unviersity of Maryland Baltimore County, said Tommy was kind enough to connect some fraternity brothers with IT jobs through his company. Like many at the funeral, he remembered Tommy for his big, photogenic smile.

Chris Geoghegan said his brother the one who taught him to ski — but not by signing him up for a class.

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“He took me to the top of a mountain,” he said, and the audience knowingly laughed. “He never taught me how to stop.”

“He loved to be a teacher, but he liked to make me make mistakes first. That’s the best way I learn. I’m very thankful to have Tom in my life for that reason. He’s one of the best teachers I’ve ever had,” he said.

Bryan Geoghegan recalled his brother as a non-stop button-pusher, even when they were kids.

“I remember, as I stood on the deck in my Superman underoos, a towel wrapped around my neck, he told me, ‘You can fly.’ I looked at him nervously and said, are you sure? (There was) Tom smiling back,” he said.

Many at the service recalled Tom’s love of hobbies like scuba diving, flying planes and boating. Bryan Geoghegan said he pictures his brother reaching heaven, getting his wings, then asking, “What can these things do?”

“Tom grabbed life by the neck and it rode it hard,” Bryan Geoghean said. “He left it all on the field. I’m strangely at peace with Tom’s passing because of it.”